"I think, basically, I was a lot happier," says Frank Goodwin of life before a man stepped in front of his truck. His partner, Lila McCrae, says "It's taken away his joy. He's changed." (Pioneer Press: John Brewer)

"I knew I hit the person, but at the same time, it wasn't totally real at first," he said. "When you see traffic come to a complete stop, you know something bad happened. But it doesn't hit you all at the same second, the total scope of it."

The truck driver, hauling a load of gas north out of St. Paul Park on Jan. 17, had been unwillingly pulled into a suicide.

Since October, the Minnesota State Patrol has responded to seven incidents of people dying after walking into traffic. Their actions affect not only family and friends, but also the people who happen to collide with them.

Coping resources -- literature and support groups -- exist for family and friends. Very little addresses the post-accident recovery for drivers.

Five months on, Schimmelpfennig is back behind the wheel but still affected.

"How many other jobs do you know where this happens?" he asked. "You're just trying to work, trying to make a paycheck like everybody else, and your life is being severely impacted by somebody else's decision. A complete stranger."

The chances of being involved in a pedestrian suicide are rare: Of the 36,909 suicides in the United States in 2009 -- the latest year for national statistics -- less than 1 percent involved people stepping in front of automobiles.

For the drivers involved, though, the damage can be permanent.

Advertisement

"It is so unexpected that the trauma for them is lifelong; it will never go away. Sometimes they won't ever drive that road again, or go under a certain bridge," said Dr. Dan Reidenberg, managing director of the National Council for Suicide Prevention.

And because it is so rare, there are few formal resources for drivers involved in pedestrian suicides.

"There absolutely is a need," Reidenberg said. "They are immediately put in a situation that they had no control over. Any of us faced with anything as horrible as that would be traumatized. And those things don't go away."

Few companies have a process in their mental health or emergency-response plans for dealing with pedestrian suicide, he said, so his group recommends victims see a doctor immediately and arrange for follow-up care.

"There also needs to be some kind of assistance to the families," he said. "One minute their spouse is fine, the next minute they're left wondering" when they'll be better.

'DIDN'T WANT TO KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT HIM'

Schimmelpfennig, a single man from rural Albany, Minn., went back to work immediately after the accident and drove for two days. But his cellphone rang constantly -- co-workers continually asked him about the accident and acquaintances texted.

"I had to get away from talking about death for three days straight. I sympathize for family members who have to bury their loved ones, because they have to talk about death for three, four, five days straight. In that type of situation, your whole family is involved," he said. "In my situation, I'm the only one to talk to. You don't get a whole family taking questions -- it was me, by myself."

Schimmelpfennig said he stayed home over a long weekend and occupied himself with lawn work.

Then Lance Lieder's family called.

They wanted to know if Schimmelpfennig had any questions for them, if he wanted to go to their son's funeral.

"I was quite shocked. I didn't want to know anything about him, about Lance," he said. "I figured the less I knew about him, the less real he is going to be to me."

More than anything, he didn't want to be reminded about the accident as he continued living his life.

"I didn't want to know his name, I didn't want to know his family, didn't want to know if he had a girlfriend, if he had hobbies," he said. "I didn't want to know nothing about him.

"I'm not cold-hearted; I just didn't want to have those connections. The less I knew about him, the less things to trigger me to think about the incident," he said. "If I could isolate myself from all of the things he represented ... it was my coping mechanism."

After the impact, on Interstate 694 at McKnight Road, Schimmelpfennig said, he pulled onto the shoulder and then jumped out of the truck into the 20-degree air. As he walked back to where the collision happened, he threw up his hands.

"What do you do? You figure out you got to call the cops, but you want to know, 'What was he thinking? Why?' " he said.

An off-duty police officer showed up, Schimmelpfennig said, and started CPR on Lieder.

"He asked, 'Could someone hold his head?' " the truck driver recalled. "I touched his head. The first thing I remembered was that he had a warm body."

Lieder died there.

Does Schimmelpfennig feel responsible for what happened?

"No, I don't. I think it's an unfortunate situation, but at the same time, I knew I did everything correct. I wasn't drinking a pop, wasn't on the phone, wasn't texting. I had both hands on the wheel and was looking straight ahead. I was just completely focused on what was directly in front of me," he said.

He also said he knows that Lieder chose his truck, not him, to commit suicide.

"A trooper told me that 100 percent of the time, it's a semi ... they always pick a semi to do it," Schimmelpfennig said.

Still, he said, he feels he was unfairly involved.

"You try to put yourself in their mind -- the whole thing happens in a matter of three, four seconds," he said. "It's hard to make sense of something like this."

'JUST THE PERSON SHE PICKED'

Renaldo Walker was maneuvering his RV north on Interstate 35E in White Bear Lake at the beginning of the Fourth of July weekend in 2010 when he saw a woman running at him.

"I realized what she was trying to do; I was just the person she picked," he said.

A truck driver by profession, Walker said he kept his foot on the gas so the woman couldn't get in front of him. She ended up hitting the side of the RV, seriously injuring herself.

"She lived. She survived. That much I know," he said. "I never asked more about it."

Walker continued his drive up north, he said, and talked with his brothers and girlfriend about how unbelievable the incident was.

"I thought about it for a while. It bothered me for a while," he said. "I just feel like it is a hell of a thing to do to someone else."

At the time, a State Patrol spokesman called the incident "one of those unusual situations that we encounter from time to time."

About two years later, a cluster of seven pedestrian suicides have been recorded in the Twin Cities and surrounding region over eight months.

No one knows exactly why, but Reidenberg pointed to the phenomenon of "contagion," where certain types of news coverage on suicide "can increase the likelihood of suicide in vulnerable adults," according to a list of suicide-reporting recommendations he helped to develop.

He said he noticed the first pedestrian suicide, in October, went largely unreported. The second, in November, received more attention. Subsequent pedestrian suicides have been noted in print and television media, he said.

Avoiding explicit details about the method of suicide and refraining from using graphic headlines or images can help reduce the likelihood of contagion, according to Reidenberg, as can providing resources for people struggling with suicidal thoughts.

An example of helpful suicide-related coverage came in April, when media reported on a man threatening to jump from the Groveland Avenue Bridge, just east of the Lowry Tunnel in Minneapolis. State Patrol troopers coordinated with several tractor-trailers to park beneath the man in an effort to prevent him from falling to the pavement. He was eventually pulled to safety.

"It was an innovative way people in Minnesota came together to prevent somebody's death," he said. "It was the community coming together to save somebody's life."

'WE DON'T NEED TO TALK ABOUT IT'

Derek Paulson was driving south on Interstate 35E in Lino Lakes a few days before Christmas 2011 when he saw the semi in front of him "swerve, kind of bounce," he said.

He at first thought the truck had hit a deer; then Paulson saw the white socks.

He ended up running over the man's lower body.

Five months later, Paulson said he doesn't think about the episode much.

"I just try not to think about it," he said. "My mom wanted me to go to a therapist. I went once. It was all right."

The 19-year-old college student said he talked with his closest friends at Rochester Community and Technical College once he was back from break but didn't tell many others about it.

"Everyone was concerned for me," he said. "It made sense that they were. ... I just said, 'I'm fine.' "

Paulson said he still drives the Dodge Dakota pickup truck he drove five months ago, but not in the same way.

"I follow further behind now. You know the three-second rule? I use that a little more often," he said. "I change lanes when I see a car on the shoulder. I usually go more to the left."

He said the accident only comes up now if a friend is teasing him about it. His family has quit discussing it.

"(They're) really good at not bringing stuff up," Paulson said. "If there's something that doesn't need to be talked about, we don't need to talk about it."

'I'M SCARED TO DEATH OF THEM'

Frank Goodwin started driving truck as a farm kid.

"I'd haul corn with my dad," he said, remembering how he'd scoot behind the wheel as his dad loaded the truck. "One day he got in on (the passenger) side and said, 'Let's go.' Ever since then I've been driving truck."

That all stopped Oct. 4, 2011, just outside Hudson, Wis., when a 43-year-old man stepped in front of Goodwin's Peterbilt truck on Interstate 94.

He was able to keep the truck under control as he pulled off onto the eastbound shoulder, but had to be helped out of his rig by a Wisconsin state trooper and two paramedics.

"I couldn't walk," Goodwin said.

He still can't drive truck.

"I not only don't want nothing to do with them, but I'm scared to death of them. Until Andrew (Heimstead) jumped out in front of me, I didn't realize how much danger they were to me and the people around me," Goodwin said. "I don't feel safe around them, because I know what they can do."

Since the "incident" -- that's what he and his partner, Lila McCrae, call the suicide -- everything has changed.

"I think, basically, I was a lot happier. Things I used to do that really excited me a lot, like hunting, it's not the thrill like it used to be anymore," he said. "I sit by myself and don't talk about it anymore. I do that quite a bit."

"It's taken away his joy," McCrae said. "He's changed."

"Like Lila says, I was home, but I wasn't," Goodwin said.

She had to drive him everywhere for two months after the incident. He's still seeing a psychologist and takes an antidepressant. He is on disability, unable to get behind the wheel of a big rig. He still hasn't talked to his boss.

While he drives his pickup truck again, mostly on back roads, he "freaks out" if anyone is parked on the shoulder.

"If I can't get way left, I'll stop," he said. "People walking, tractors ... I don't want anything to do with them."

'MAD AT WHAT HE DID'

Eight months later, it's easier for Goodwin to talk about the incident.

"I think I've done everything I can do to get better, but I can't seem to get over that last step," he said. "I haven't talked to my boss in months; I worry about that, my job, what am I going to do if I can't drive truck?"

"You're heavily laden; you have a weight," McCrae told him.

They noted that Goodwin, once the perfectionist, has let a broken rearview mirror hang from his truck for months. That wouldn't have happened before the incident, they said.

"That mirror is what Andrew did to you; that incident has fractured you in all these different directions, and you're trying to pull it all together and figure it all out," McCrae said.

Goodwin shrugged in agreement.

"For the longest time, I knew in my head and heart that there was nothing I could do, but I was still scared people would call me or text me and blame me," he said. "I always thought about his family, what they thought; then I got a letter from his mother. I was afraid to read it. Lila read it.

"They actually prayed for me, the burden he had left on me," Goodwin said. "It took me a couple, three weeks to write her back. I don't even know if she got it. We just had her name and 'Wabasha.' "

Does he resent the man who stepped in front of his truck?

"You know, I didn't think I did, but my doctor thinks I do," Goodwin said. "I say I'm not mad at him; I'm just mad at what he did.

"But in the back of my mind, I'm pissed off as hell for what he screwed up, not just for my family, but for his."

John Brewer can be reached at 651-228-2093.

GETTING HELP

The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 800-273-TALK (8255)

SUICIDE WARNING SIGNS

-- Talking about wanting to die

-- Looking for a way to kill oneself

-- Talking about feeling hopeless or having no purpose

-- Talking about feeling trapped or in unbearable pain

-- Talking about being a burden to others

-- Increasing the use of alcohol or drugs

-- Acting anxious, agitated or reckless

-- Sleeping too little or too much

-- Withdrawing or feeling isolated

-- Showing rage or talking about seeking revenge

-- Displaying extreme mood swings

The more of these signs a person shows, the greater the risk. Warning signs are associated with suicide but may not be what causes a suicide.

WHAT TO DO

If someone you know exhibits warning signs of suicide:

-- Do not leave the person alone

-- Remove any firearms, alcohol, drugs or sharp objects that could be used in a suicide attempt

-- Call the U.S. National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-TALK (8255)

-- Take the person to an emergency room or seek help from a medical or mental health professional